Manomas Lovina Gibson (1842-1940)
}} Biography Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company Numbered amoung the participants in the Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company, a early Mormon pioneer wagon train that left Mississippi in 1846 to join the Mormon exodus to Utah. This group Brigham Young's vanguard company and spent the winter of 1846/47 at Fort Pueblo where the were joined by soldiers of the sick detachment of the Mormon Battalion. They reached Salt Lake City in late summer of 1847. Manomas was only four years of age when her parents and other family members became converts of the Latter-day Saints (Mormon) Church and commenced the long journey across the Great Plains to Utah. There were seventeen persons in the group from Mississippi, who joined the Pioneers at Ft. Laramie, in June of 1847. They had wintered at Pueblo, along with many others who later joined Captain Brown's detachment of the Mormon Battalion and came on to Ft. Laramie with them, arriving June 16th, the first seventeen having arrived on the 1st. The entire group pushed forward on the 17th, hoping to overtake the main caravan before it reached Utah. These facts are recorded in the Utah Chronology. The Gibson’s were with this company of seventeen who wintered at Pueblo, which was then only a small trading post with a few log buildings. There were only a few other women than those of the Gibson party in the settlement that winter. Mr. Gibson had contracted Mountain Fever (Typhoid) which was their reason for this delay along the route. Though not yet five years of age, "Aunt Nome" recounts clearly the incidents of that long cold winter. One event stands out prominently in her mind. There were assembled at Pueblo, along with the few Mormon Pioneers, quite a number of traders and trappers who did a good bit of drinking and gambling. One night some of these men were gambling in a building next to the cabin occupied by the Gibson’s. An argument arose over the card game, and the Gibson children were terrified at the thought of what was going on so near them, as they could hear every word of the snarling, swearing men. Suddenly there were shots. One man was killed. Keen in her mind today is the memory of that awful night, the loud shouting of the men and their gunfire as they pursued the murderer, who was later apprehended, shot to death and brought to camp for burial. Father Gibson, being a carpenter, fashioned a coffin from rough logs in which the murderer was buried. Much suffering was endured during that long winter and such anguish lest something should happen and they might not get to the Valley. With the coming of spring they resumed their journey to Utah, continuing with the sick detachment from the Mormon Battalion under Captain Brown, and arriving in Salt Lake Valley July 29th, 1847, five days after the main caravan of pioneers. There was almost a celebration over their safe arrival, as there had been great anxiety concerning them. Big Cottonwood Settlement The Gibson’s remained in Salt Lake during the summer and winter of 1847, and Manomas remembers taking a hand with her brothers and sisters and the others in the war waged on the crickets. The children were given small wooden mallets and did all they could to help exterminate the insects. Then came the great flocks of gulls. She shuddered as she recounted the way the gulls gorged on the crickets till they could hold no more, than disgorged themselves and took on a fresh feeding until finally the cricket horde were destroyed. The family moved to Big Cottonwood in the spring of 1848, where they erected, first, just a shelter of willows, and her father did some farming. They brought some tools with them when they came across the plains, a heavy axe, a sort of spade shovel, and her father had a few carpenter tools. Soon they had a log house, or cabin, in Cottonwood, but just a very small place and plenty crowded, even though their possessions were very meager. They had only Johnny cake most of the time for the family, but her father secured a little flour for her invalid mother. They did have a pretty plenty of meat most of the time, as her father was handy at killing the wild rabbits and pine hens, and there were lots of fish in the stream not far from their home. They also dug sego roots, cooking the bulbs much the same as potatoes. And they soon raised their own potatoes and such small vegetable as are found commonly in gardens--beans, peas, carrots, cabbage, beets and turnips. They made some molasses from beets, as well as from cane, and this syrup was the chief sweetener for all purposes.